January 2018 Issue

Editor's Report

By John Lypen

Like the premature coverage of Mark Twain’s demise in 1897, many headlines in 2017 seemed intent on creating an impression that the internal combustion engine is near its death.

It’s fitting that this month’s cover of MOTOR features a Tesla car. After all, it seems that in recent months practically every magazine, newspaper and website in the country has been graced with cars (or trucks) designed by Elon Musk’s revolutionary company. There’s a good reason for that, however—namely, the captivating prospects of battery-powered transportation and Tesla’s leadership position in the market.

But it seems that many of the articles published last year were written by folks with an overzealous opinion of the technology, at the very least. Last summer, for example, when Volvo announced its intention to stop manufacturing passenger vehicles powered purely by an internal combustion engine, headlines blared all sorts of sensational headlines. The Wall Street Journal, for example, declared “Volvo Plans to Go Electric, to Abandon Conventional Car Engine by 2019,” while Bloomberg proclaimed “Volvo Vaults to Volts, Planning to Pull Plug on Gasoline Engines.”

What the Swedish manufacturer really said is that every Volvo it launches from 2019 “will have an electric motor, marking the historic end of cars that only have an internal combustion engine (ICE).” In other words, most of the vehicles will be hybrids, which include an ICE. Not nearly as exciting, I know.

More misdirection came later in the year upon news of legislation introduced in California that would ban the sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles after 2040: “California is Trying to Ban All Gasoline-Powered Cars in the State by 2040” (Fortune), “California Bill in the Works to Banish Gasoline Cars by 2040” (Bloomberg) and “Could California Ban Gasoline Cars?” (San Francisco Chronicle).

The distinction here, of course, is that the legislation would ban the sale, not the ownership or operation of vehicles powered by an ICE. Therefore, it would have no effect on the tens of millions of nonelectrics that would be on California roads at the time.

One could argue that none of these attention-grabbers is technically inaccurate, but they sure are misleading and causing confusion, especially for people who read only news headlines, which, according to various studies, is between 60% and 80% of Americans. One individual who apparently conflated and misunderstood Volvo’s announcement and the California legislation actually told me he believed that cars with gasoline engines would not be permitted to operate in California starting in 2019!

In this month’s cover story, Bill Howard delivers a pragmatic review of the current state and future of electric vehicles. Among many other facts, he reports that currently, pure battery electric vehicles account for around 1% of market share. It’s important to understand, we’re talking the percentage of new-car sales, not the percentage of vehicles currently in operation.

At the end of 2017, there were approximately 272 million passenger vehicles in operation on American roads, fewer than one million of them pure electric. To replace all the gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles from American roads, a lot of things would have to exist. Among them:

•enough charging stations and the electric grid to support them,

•battery technology capable of providing driving ranges that fit every American lifestyle,

•sufficient manufacturing and recycling capacity,

•electric vehicles that are comparably priced to their ICE counterparts, without the assistance of tax incentives.

Even if all the ifs weren’t ifs and every state in the union declared that only electric vehicles could be sold starting today, it would still take nearly 15 years to turn over the fleet and completely eliminate fossil fuel-burners.